Professional speakers often use simple mental recipes to organize impromptu talks. The author taught these recipes to his high school composition students and used a timed trial format to give them practice in rapidly outlining their thoughts on a given topic. Thirteen of these recipes are provided. (SJL)

Freewriting is an effective means of teaching students how to develop persona in writing. One approach is to have students imagine that they are inanimate objects or nonhuman creatures, provide them with a specific situation or environment, and ask them to freewrite for five to ten minutes. Another slant is to have them become famous historical…

An approach to teaching the novel to high school students by tying literature and the printed media (newspapers and magazines) together is described in this brief article. PROCEDURE (excerpt): To link the study of the printed media to the study of the novel, book reviews, one positive and one negative, were duplicated for classroom use. Students…

This exercise is intended to teach the sense of sentences and their place in the larger fabric of paragraphs as they are woven into organized papers. Based on the five-paragraph theme (introduction, three body paragraphs, and conclusion), the exercise divides "What I Haved Lived For," the prologue to "The Autobiography of Bertrand…

An approach to using values clarification exercises in a college freshman composition or a high school English class is presented in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): Since the integration of writing and thinking is vital in the development of writing abilities, the values clarification experience is a natural bridge for students to…

An approach to teaching literary point of view to high school and college composition classes is described in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): My students demonstrate little understanding of the concept of point of view. They seem unaware that selecting a point of view is an important decision for a writer, because it controls the…

An approach to teaching stylistics, or writing style, to high school and college composition classes is described in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): Composition teachers generally recognize and appreciate grace in writing. But teaching or learning that grace is difficult at best. Perhaps style cannot easily be taught, but it can be…

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT: LEVEL: High school and college. AUTHOR'S COMMENT: Many would like to abandon the distinction between "lay" and "lie," but I still receive enough questions about it to continue teaching it. Finding that students did not believe me when I taught them to substitute…

A unit for teaching writing to senior high school students is described in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): I have used the following exercises to help writing students develop a stronger sense of audience. The sequence of activities is divided into three phases--prewriting, drafting, and rewriting--and a fourth phase of publishing…

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT: LEVEL: High school and college. AUTHOR'S COMMENT: I used this mini-unit to initiate the class in working effectively as a peer group. Moreover, the task I assigned demands that students develop an awareness of their audience's needs by providing an immediate and concrete response. THE APPROACH: (1)…

An approach to using a student's own birthday as the basis of a library research project for college and high school students is described in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): I found my students became very excited about a topic that introduced them to the library while exciting their curiosity and interest: to investigate events…

Noting that students in groups learn more effectively when working cooperatively than when working competitively or individualistically, presents guidelines, assignments, and class activities designed to foster cooperative learning. Describes such student-student interaction sessions as describing sense perception details, receiving peer feedback,…

This book, part of a series which serve as guides for K-12 teachers who are striving to align lively, classroom-tested practices with standards, gathers together brief articles spotlighting suggestions for effective instruction. Beginning with activities that help students think through the audience and purpose for their writing, this book offers…

An approach to writing for high school and college students is presented in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): The science fiction course I teach is an elective that enrolls about fifty students per class. Ninety percent or more of the students are not English majors and have done little writing in the recent past. Assigning frequent…

Designed to enable the special needs student to comprehend and complete job application forms, this set of activities on job application vocabulary, neatness, and following directions is the third unit in a nine-unit secondary level careers course intended to provide handicapped students with the knowledge and tools necessary to succeed in the…